As consumer devices have gotten smaller and smaller in response to consumer demand, the individual components of these devices have decreased in size as well. Semiconductor devices, which make up a major component of devices such as mobile phones, computer tablets, and the like, have been pressured to become smaller and smaller, with a corresponding pressure on the individual devices (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, etc.) within the semiconductor devices to also be reduced in size.
One enabling technology that is used in the manufacturing processes of semiconductor devices is the use of photolithographic materials. Such materials are applied to a surface and then exposed to an energy that has itself been patterned. Such an exposure modifies the chemical and physical properties of the exposed regions of the photolithographic material. This modification, along with the lack of modification in regions of the photolithographic material that were not exposed, can be exploited to remove one region without removing the other.
However, as the size of individual devices has decreased, process windows for photolithographic processing have become tighter and tighter. As such, advances in the field of photolithographic processing have been needed in order to keep up the ability to scale down the devices, and further improvements are needed in order to meet the desired design criteria such that the march towards smaller and smaller components may be maintained.